


The Hanukkah Sequel

by childishinquiry



Series: contents as described [2]
Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: Domestic, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Hanukkah, Holidays, Jewish Character, Mentions of Deep Dish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 17:38:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3419642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/childishinquiry/pseuds/childishinquiry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even Stinger and Kiza get in on the Hanukkah business.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hanukkah Sequel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DeenyMarie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeenyMarie/gifts), [indigostohelit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigostohelit/gifts).



Explaining the Bolotnikovs’ particular set of Hanukkah traditions was bad enough when Jupiter tried it with Caine, who had googled Judaism after his first dinner with her family. Stinger and Kiza, however, had never had much interest in Earth religions, and they didn’t quite grasp what Jupiter was inviting them to.

“So...you spend eight days lighting candles? That’s all you do?” Stinger asked.

“No! It’s--the candles are a brief but significant part of the eight days--nights. What you’ll come to is, is like a dinner, with pizza and party games, that starts with a candle being lit. Almost like a birthday.”

Stinger relaxed, having arrived at a part of the conversation that he could grasp. “Pizza is good. We like pizza.”

Kiza silently showed Jupiter her Tumblr. There was a lot of pizza.

“You guys are up for it, then?”

“Up for what?”

Jupiter groaned. “You, me, Kiza, Caine, and my family, at my house, lighting a sacred candle, and then eating deep dish and latkes and _gelt_. Next Sunday. Are you in?”

“Can we be out?” Kiza asked.

“No.” Jupiter grinned. “It’ll be fun.”

Stinger and Kiza both turned to look at Caine. He was propped in the corner, trying not to radiate how tense he already was about Sunday.

“Caine,” Stinger said, slowly. “Will it be fun?”

Caine looked at Jupiter, caught. “Uh. No?”

Jupiter stuck her tongue out at him. “You say that, but you’ve never actually had pizza.”

Stinger--Stinger reeled. “Jupiter. How could you.”

“I’m sorry! I wanted it to be special!” Jupiter protested. “We’re getting Moretti’s delivered, it’ll be amazing. That reminds me, any vegetarian pizza toppings you prefer? We keep kosher during Hanukkah, so no meat with the cheese.”

“I don’t know what kosher is, but I want pineapple!” Kiza volunteered.

“Of course, Kiza. With grilled onions?”

Kiza’s eyes shone as if she had found a new god in Jupiter. _“Yes.”_

“You, Stinger?”

Stinger was looking between Kiza and Jupiter, disgusted and horrified. “Just cheese.”

“Alright, I’ll pass it along. Now, let’s keep playing the game. Caine, you need to give me your green earrings, don’t think I forgot.”

Caine sighed, and unclipped the green plastic from his ears. “If I give you these, do I have to go to Hanukkah?”

“Yes, Caine. Gimme.” Jupiter accepted his sacrifice, grinning at the small mountain of plastic jewelry before her. “Don’t worry. It’ll be fun.”

 

\--*--

 

“Jupiter! Where did you put the lighter?”

“I didn’t put it anywhere. Ask Vladie.” Jupiter checked her eyeshadow in the hall mirror; Caine had sent her a Snap before Stinger had picked him up, and Caine’s makeup was flawless tonight. She needed to make sure he didn’t outdo her.

“Vladie!” Jupiter’s mother could probably be heard from space. (Jupiter could even check on that later.) “Where did you put the lighter?!”

Vladie made a strangled noise and thundered up the stairs to his room.

Jupiter’s mother, scrounging in the cupboards for the second bottle of olive oil, tsked. “So sloppy. His mother’s going to find out he smokes pot eventually if he doesn’t bother to hide it.”

“She would have to think that Vladie had imperfections first,” Jupiter replied. The doorbell rang. “That’ll be them. I’ll get it!”

“Jupiter.” Jupiter’s mom grabbed her arm, looking suspicious. “Are your friends weird, like Caine?”

“No. Caine’s not...weird, who told you he was weird?”

“Have you already forgotten about the shoes?”

Jupiter winced. “I did. Sorry. No, they’re normal, just let me--”

Jupiter’s uncle walked into the kitchen. He had the face of a man who had seen death. “Bees. So many bees.”

Jupiter sighed. “You answered the door.”

Her uncle nodded, wordlessly. Jupiter sat him down at the table, tramped out to the door, and opened it.

On the upside, Caine really did look gorgeous, and Stinger and Kiza were dressed almost like human beings. On the downside, there were surrounded by a buzzing cloud of thousands of bees.

“I didn’t think I had to say this,” Jupiter said, slowly. “But the bees are not invited to Hanukkah.”

Stinger looked at the cloud, confused. “Why not? Is Hanukkah not an Earth holiday? Bees are from Earth.”

“Bees are not Jewish. People are.”

“We’re not Jewish, and you invited us.”

“No bees!” Jupiter pointed at the Apinis’ car, which was half subsumed by honeycombs. “Tell them to stay in the car until we’re done.”

“But--”

“Car!” Jupiter yelled, looking directly at the bees this time. They fled to the car. “Now. Please try not to scare my family any more than you already have.”

The Apinis and Jupiter followed Jupiter inside. Her uncle was still in the corner, and cowered when he saw Stinger and Kiza.

“Sorry about the bees,” Kiza muttered, and then walked on, pulling out her smartphone. “What’s the wifi password, Jupiter?”

“Bolotnikov445. No spaces.” Jupiter patted Stinger on the shoulder. “Stinger, this is my mother, Aleksa Bolotnikov. Mom, this is Stinger Apini.”

Jupiter’s mother said, “He looks like Sean Bean. You, you look like Sean Bean.”

“Yes, I get that a lot.” Stinger took Aleksa’s hand and kissed it. “Pleased to meet you.”

Aleksa pulled back her hand, reaching behind her for the hand sanitizer. “I am cooking. Where did you learn that, Downtown Abbey?”

Jupiter choked. He had, which she knew because he kept trying to convince her to watch it. She shooed Stinger into the family room.

“Was just trying to be friendly,” Stinger muttered.

“I think it’s best that you not try to be friendly. If possible, ever again.” They ran into Kiza then, who was stopped in her tracks, looking at the spread on the table.

Which, Jupiter understood. There was a lot of blue involved.

“It is just like a birthday!” Stinger declared, looking around at the decorations. His eyes lit on the menorah, and he chuckled as he went over to it. “It’s got you on it!”

“Yeah, like I’ve never heard that before.” Jupiter cut over to him, keeping Stinger from lifting it from the table. It was old; her mother had bought this menorah after she had married Jupiter’s dad. They had gotten to celebrate two Hanukkahs before the robbery, and the cheap, kitschy thing had made its way, battered yet well-loved, to America, to have a pride of place for all of the Hanukkahs that Jupiter could remember. Jupiter ran her finger idly over the nine planets that formed the bases for each candle; Jupiter was in the center, for the _shamash_ , and the planets radiated out from it according to decreasing size. The paint was cracked and faded, and all the corners busted, so, naturally, Jupiter loved it with all her heart. “This is what we’ll be putting the candles in. The menorah.”

“It’s very appropriate,” Kiza said, her eyes shining over with yellow. She’d gotten better a while ago, but sometimes she still had these moments, where her cheeks grew pink and she didn’t quite remember how to act like a human. “The queen bringing light to all the planets.”

Stinger held his daughter close. “Well put, Kiza. Let’s sit down, hmm?”

Caine was supporting a corner; Vladie had reappeared at some point, and was leaning casually beside him, studying Caine’s effortlessly cool nature and trying to replicate it exactly. Jupiter felt a tap on her arm, and looked down to see that Matthie (who was getting to close to her height, dammit).

“Are they any good at the dreidel?” Matthie asked.

Jupiter grinned. “They’ve never even seen a dreidel before.”

Matthie whooped, and they fistbumped; when Vladie looked at them, Jupiter mimed spinning with one hand, and he grinned, slow and avaricious. The Bolotnikovs knew well enough not to let Jupiter, Vladie, and Matthie form their unholy trinity; but Caine and the Apinis?

It wasn’t like Caine could eat the _gelt_ anyway.

The doorbell rang, and Matthie and Vladie fled to intercept the delivery man. Jupiter turned to her collection of aliens.

“Okay, remember: try to be normal. No bees, no mentions of intergalactic travel. No chewing shoes.” Caine looked cowed. “Just be yourselves. Without frightening my family.”

Kiza nodded, Caine looked grim, and Stinger looked terrified.

And then the Bolotnikovs swooped down on them.

If Jupiter hadn’t lived with them her whole life, known their faces and number as well as she knew her own hands, she would have sworn that they had multiplied. It was a wave of Bolotnikovs that crashed into them, the pizzas, the lighter, and the giant dish of latkes cresting and dipping between hands as if they were floating on top of waves. Caine moved, as if to grab a seat in the darkest corner before anyone else could, but Jupiter waved him off, which, of course, got everybody else’s attention.

And they all...stared at Stinger?

“Jupiter.” Jupiter’s aunt patted her face, like she did to wake herself up in the mornings. “You invited Sean Bean to Hanukkah?”

“He’s not Sean Bean. Everybody, Stinger Apini, Stinger, everybody.”

Stinger waved. They kept staring.

“Jupiter, that is definitely Sean Bean.”

“Sean Bean, are you going to die at our Hanukkah?”

“Guys!” Jupiter glared at Vladie, who was giggling. “He’s not Sean Bean. The sun is going down right now! We need to light the candles!”

“Vladie, do you have the lighter?”

Vladie jumped, and passed it forward to Jupiter’s uncle. He gave it to her.

“What, really?” Usually her uncle liked to do the first night; he thought he was the only one that could do it right.

“Yes. Impress Sean Bean, or I will disown you.”

“He’s not--” Jupiter decided it wasn’t worth it. She took the lighter, and the candles floated to her on a multitude of hands. She stuck the first candle into place, then took the _shamash_ and bent it to the lighter.

Click. Click, click.

“Vladie,” Jupiter said, turning very, very calmly towards him, “Did you use up the lighter fluid in the lighter?”

“I don’t know! Maybe.”

“Why would he use that up?” Jupiter’s uncle’s wife (she had a name, but it was as terrible as she was) looked between them. “Vladie does not need a lighter for anything!”

Someone coughed. It sounded suspiciously like, “Run, Vladie.”

“Jupiter.” Jupiter turned around; Kiza offered her what looked like a lighter. Ish. Jupiter folded it into her hand.

“Thank you, Kiza! Kiza had a lighter, everyone, we’re good.”

Murmured thanks rippled; Jupiter’s uncle’s wife stared at Vladie, her confusion not looking to break any time soon.

“Alright, Alright, let’s see.” Jupiter inspected the lighter, doing her best not to show it off too much to the Bolotnikovs, who might have noticed that it had little blinking green lights set into the grip. She found a solitary button, and so she held it up to the _shamash_ and hoped for the best.

It lit. flames also spurted out of the other end of the lighter, and they were a funny magenta color, but the candle was lit, so Jupiter shoved the thing back at Kiza and moved over to the menorah. Someone in the back of the Bolotnikov crowd ran and hit the lightswitch, sinking them into gentle darkness.

 _“Barukh atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melekh ha’olam…”_ Jupiter murmured, and her family joined in, bolstering her voice and letting their own rise with the melody. The Apinis’ eyes flashed in the darkness, but so did everyone else’s, reflecting the little flame. Jupiter looked at Caine; he stared steadily back at her, reverent and still.

Before Jupiter was really conscious of it, the last words of the Shehecheyanu dissipated, and she jumped, turning to the menorah. Leaning over Pluto and its candle on the far right side, she gently lit the flame, and placed the _shamash_ in Jupiter. She stood back to let everyone look quietly.

“Happy Hanukkah,” Jupiter said, and she squeezed Caine’s hand.

Caine squeezed hers back. Someone turned on the lights; they blinked at each other, and smiled.

“Come, Sean Bean!” Jupiter’s uncle cried, patting Stinger hard on the back. “You can tell everyone that winter is coming.”

“I’m not Sean Bean, Sean Bean is me,” Stinger muttered, but he sat at the table.

Jupiter bit her lip, still looking up at her space werewolf love. “Ready to try deep dish?”

Caine nodded. “For you, and because of you, I am willing to try many things.”

“Good. Mom! Get Caine a pineapple and onion slice too, please.”

\--*--

Caine didn’t agree, as it turned out, that pineapple and onion were perfect pizza toppings. But nobody was perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> And what happens next? I think that is up to you to imagine, as I am going to be writing my stepkids AU and having a horrific cold.
> 
> Pineapple and grilled onions may sound gross together, but they are surprisingly delicious in combination upon a pizza. Granted, I usually also have pepperoni, salami, sausage, and bacon (Mako Mori bless Blaze Pizza), so I don't actually know how they'd taste in isolation. But I will still bet delicious.
> 
> This work is gifted to DeenyMarie, for inspiring this sequel, and indigostohelit, for helping this atheist understand the true spirit of the holidays, as well as important input on pizza toppings. Love them both, they're fantastic.


End file.
